Truck Drivin’ Hero Page 15

  Someone was awake out there, though. And he wouldn’t rest until he found them, and brought them all to justice.

  17

  Hero woke up in his own little slice of heaven. He was spooning Sunshine while Speedy had her back up against his back. Just like the other day, Hero got the privilege of lightly running his fingers up and down Sunshine’s body as she slept, enjoying her curves as much as he could.

  It was Speedy who woke up first, though. She turned toward Hero, checking to see if he was awake yet. “I’m going to go take a shower,” she whispered. He just nodded, hoping he didn't wake up Sunshine. For a moment, he thought about joining Speedy in the shower, but instead just laid on the bed with Sunshine.

  As the water turned on, Sunshine woke up. She turned to face him as well. “Good morning,” she said sleepily.

  “Good morning,” he said, drinking in the sight of her naked boobs in front of him. He started to get hard just looking at her.

  “Oh, you’re ready to go again this morning?” she asked. She reached down and grabbed his dick, stroking him a little bit.

  “Do you really want to go without Speedy?” he asked.

  “No,” she said with a smile. “And maybe never again. Besides, we probably don’t have time anyway.” She got up and started to put on her clothes.

  “I’m really glad everything went well last night,” Hero said, still lounging in the bed.

  “Yeah, I guess I have to thank you for dropping that bombshell.”

  “No need to thank me. I’ll mix up your life any time.”

  She flipped him off, and he smiled. “Should we give Apple’s room a call?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we probably should do that soon. Hey, what do you think about her?”

  “Apple? She’s fine, I guess.” Sunshine gave a noncommittal shrug.

  “She really messed up yesterday.”

  Sunshine shrugged again. “She made a mistake, yes. She’s young, though, and sheltered. It’s a mistake I could have seen myself making a couple years ago.”

  “No other reads on her?”

  “Nope. She’s just a scientist, nothing more to read into there.”

  Speedy came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. “Who, Apple? I think she’s fine. She’s pretty funny anyway. She made me laugh when she was talking about the bird poop.”

  “You guys had to get her out of quite the fix yesterday,” Hero said.

  “It’s just a part of being a team,” Speedy said.

  “Okay. What would you say if I told you that she hit on me last night?” Hero asked.

  “Really?” Sunshine asked. Hero nodded. “Okay, now I hate her. You’re ours.” She stuck her tongue out to show that she was kidding.

  “You’re working your charm on her full time in that truck of yours, aren’t you?” Speedy teased.

  “Not really. Still, before you two showed up to kiss me in the lobby, she offered to share her hotel room with me. The implication was clear.”

  Sunshine laughed. “That’s pretty obvious, yeah. Well, she must not have known about us, then.”

  “Yeah, but she does now.”

  “So? She's just ahead of the curve. As soon as we get back to Teaneck, I’m going to let everyone know about the three of us,” Sunshine said.

  “You do love to tell everyone about your sex life,” Speedy said with an eyeroll.

  “Were you going to hide it?” Sunshine asked.

  Speedy didn’t answer. There was a long pause before Hero said, “One mission at a time. Let’s deliver this reactor and then figure out what we’re doing next.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Sunshine said.

  Apple met Hero at the truck at 7:30. She was wearing a pink t-shirt and pink yoga pants. Despite Hero being drained last night by Sunshine and Speedy, he still thought Apple looked good enough to take a bite out of.

  “You mind if I take a look at the engine? I meant to do it at the facility, but they wouldn’t let us outside until the solar storm hit,” Apple said.

  Hero grinned. He never passed up an opportunity to show off Alexandria. He opened the hood and flipped it open, exposing the engine. He tried to keep her as clean as possible, but the last few days had put a lot of miles on her. Even that brand new, lead-encased battery had a little wear-and-tear on it. Still, most of the metal gleamed.

  Apple jumped into the cab and came back out with a notebook. She jumped on a tire and started inspecting Alexandria’s engine. She took notes for a moment, poking and prodding with her hands in between writing notes. “Anything I can explain to you?” Hero asked.

  “I’ll let you know. There’s no air filter in here?” she asked.

  He shook his head and pointed. “Not in the engine. The Mack Superliner used an air cleaner. You can find the air filter in there.”

  “Of course,” she said. She opened the air cleaner. “Is this stock?”

  “No. There are still plenty of dirt roads and farms in Iowa, so I had a heavy duty one installed,” Hero said, impressed that she knew anything at all.

  She nodded, continuing to write. “Can you turn it on?”

  “Her,” Hero corrected.

  “Her?”

  “Her name is Alexandria. I’m not offended, but nowadays, it’s important to call someone by their correct pronouns.”

  Apple grinned. “Fine, can you turn Alexandria on?”

  “Of course.” He jumped in the cab and turned her on.

  Apple took notes for a couple more minutes. Hero couldn't help but be a little turned on that she was willing to get her hands dirty, poking around in Alexandria. A few minutes later, she jumped down. “I’m done.”

  Just then, Speedy and Sunshine rolled up in the Mustang. “We ready to roll, Boss?” Speedy called from the driver seat.

  “I’m synchronized to Sunshine’s watch, so roll out at 0800,” Hero said.

  “Will do.” She pulled away, taking a parking spot near the entrance to the motel.

  Soon, they were back on I-80. There were hardly any cars on the road, and most of the stalled ones had been towed away the night before. Apple wrote a couple more notes in her notebook before putting it down.

  “So did you have any questions about the engine?” Hero asked.

  “I told you, I’ll let you know if I do,” Apple said.

  Hero gave it a moment, then said, “You’re not much of a morning person, are you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, your mood improved all day yesterday. I just bet it’ll do the same today,” Hero said.

  Apple sighed. “I was just looking at ways to make improvements to the engine.”

  “What makes you think I’d let you improve my truck?” Hero asked.

  “You let them change the battery, didn’t you?” Apple asked.

  “Yeah.” He thought about it for a moment, remembering that Eldon said that it was a battery created by one of the scientists. “That’s your design?”

  She nodded. “Adapted it from the International Space Station’s design. Not the design they had when the aliens blew it up, but before that. They used a nickel-hydrogen battery. Lower capacity than lithium-ion, but much less likely to catch fire or blow up.”

  Hero nodded slowly. Hearing her talk about engine parts was definitely a turn-on. “So in addition to working on fusion generators and hydrostatic pressure, you make engine parts. Is there anything else about you that I should know?”

  Apple shrugged and looked over at Hero. “There’s a lot about me that you don’t know.” She straightened up, as if she had crossed a line, then added, “It’s just something to do, really.”

  Hero looked over at her, but she did her best to just look straight forward. “Okay. What’s the deal, kid? Didn’t you sleep well?”

  “I slept fine,” she said without emotion. “Though… maybe not as well as you did.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Come on, Apple. Anything you ne
ed to get off your chest?”

  She sighed, then spoke up. “So are you and Speedy and Sunshine in some kind of weird sex cult?”

  The question took Hero off guard so much that he choked on his own spit. “Wow,” he said when he finally recovered.

  “Well, I saw you three all flirting and kissing each other in the motel's lobby last night, and then you all spent the night in the same room.”

  Hero coughed a little more, then answered simply. “Yep.”

  “Yep, what?”

  “Yep, that’s all true.”

  Apple paused. “Well?”

  “Well what?” he asked.

  “Are you all three sleeping together?” she asked.

  Hero didn’t know how to put it delicately, so he just said, “Yep” again.

  “Are you going to tell me anything else, other than ‘yep’?”

  Hero sighed. “Sunshine and Speedy are in love with each other. I have history with both women. We enjoy each other’s company, and we all find each other sexy.”

  “Doesn’t that get complicated?” Apple asked.

  “What could be less complicated than a relationship where all members find each other sexy?”

  “Don’t you get jealous?”

  “Look, I don’t have all the answers about this. It’s brand new to me, too. I don’t know if the two of them get jealous of each other. What I do know is that I absolutely love watching the two of them make love to each other. I don’t feel any jealousy at all about them.”

  “Don’t you think that looks weird?”

  “No. You’re asking a lot of questions. Are you sure you’re not being judgmental?”

  “I’m trying not to be. I read that book you loaned me last night, Fifty Shades. It… it introduced me to some new ideas. However, it did not have a section on polyamory,” Apple said.

  “Well, I’m glad to have broadened your horizons at least a little bit. I wouldn’t put so technical a label like ‘polyamory’ on what we have, either.”

  “Well, that’s what people are going to call it. You really don’t worry about what they’ll think?”

  Hero shrugged, then laughed. “I haven’t worried about what people outside my family think about me in a long time. It’s pretty liberating, actually.”

  Apple opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. “How does someone become part of your family?” she asked.

  “To start, they go on more than one mission with me. And they don’t ask a million questions, either,” Hero said.

  “Okay, okay.” She looked forward again. “One last question?”

  Hero sighed and made the hurry up signal.

  “Do you find me sexy?”

  “Most definitely, Apple,” he said without hesitation. “I wasn’t lying when I said I’d like to take a bite out of you.”

  She blushed, then grabbed her notebook again. She wrote furiously. Hero tried for an hour to look over and see what she was writing, but it was impossible.

  “Breaker 1-9, this is Yosemite Stan, there a Mustang with a coupl'a broads and an Australian on this hea’ breaker?”

  Hero looked at the CB radio. He didn’t like the sound of that. “Yosemite Stan, this is Hero, that sounds like me.”

  “Hero, there’s a Checkpoint Charlie on I-80, a mile before South Bend, Indiana. Grey runnin’ it, dressed up real funny. Talked my ear off 'bout Texas, and I got him to talkin’ too. He says he’s lookin’ for ya’ll.”

  Hero looked over at Apple, then keyed the mic. “10-4, buddy. Thank you very much. Speedy, how about we take a 10-100 at the next exit to regroup and figure out our next move.”

  Never thought we’d be back to using paper maps, Hero thought as he flipped a few more pages of the Atlas.

  “I’m telling you, this is the route,” Speedy said.

  Hero frowned. He thought they'd have to take I-69 as a detour, but that would mean doubling back. They'd lose hours.

  Speedy said she knew a back route, though.

  “Have you ever driven it?” Hero asked.

  “Well, no.” Speedy looked a little sheepish. “But look, it’s right there on the map. The route will take three hours, but we'll barely lose any time at all.”

  “This map is three years old, and who knows how long it’s been since they bothered updating it before that,” Hero said.

  “Why don’t we just get off the exit before the checkpoint and go through the town, then get back on the highway?” Apple asked.

  Hero shook his head. “If he’s on our radio channel and intercepted Stan's message, he’ll be counting on that. He has to have the help of the local cops if he set up a checkpoint, so they’ll be all over that area.”

  “We’ve bought off lots of cops. We can do it again,” Sunshine said.

  “We can’t really take that chance,” Hero said. He looked at the map again. “Speedy, this route takes us an hour south under the best of circumstances. Can you navigate using the map?”

  Speedy grinned. “Of course I can!”

  Hero smiled. “Then let’s get going.”

  In a city called Bristol, they made their exit and turned left. Like much of the Midwest, as soon as they got away from I-80, farmland stretched as far as they could see on either side of the road. The road quickly narrowed to two lanes. They made a series of quick left and right turns, eventually leading to a county road.

  “This doesn’t seem like it’s going to a major road,” Apple said. “It feels more like someone’s driveway.”

  Internally, Hero agreed. “Speedy says this dumps out onto I-69, so we’re just going to keep following her.”

  They kept going, further and further. One county road turned into another, turned into another, turned into another. Several of those county roads were dirt roads. Once, Hero even picked up the hand mic to ask her if they were still on course, but then thought better of it and put it back. As the hour mark passed, they finally pulled back onto a paved road, though it was still two lanes. There were trees all over the place. A beautiful forest lined both sides of the road.

  That was the last dirt road they were on. After that, the county roads were much better paved, and Hero thought for sure they were on the right track. Finally, Hero saw a sign that said “I-70 cutoff”. He breathed a sigh of relief. They had lost some time, but if they could get to I-70, things would be alright. I-70 led right into what was left of Denver, and from there it would be a breeze to Boulder.

  The road ahead ended in a stop sign, but only five miles down the next road was the on-ramp to I-70. Hero grabbed his hand mic. “Great job Speedy. I never doubted you for a minute.”

  Speedy rolled to a stop at the stop sign, putting her left turn signal on. Without warning, a cop car sped past them from their left, doing about ninety miles per hour on the forty mile per hour road. Hero saw a robot crammed into the passenger-side seat and he knew just who else was in that car.

  “Was that…?” Apple asked.

  “Yeah, it was,” Hero said.

  The cop car slammed on its brakes. At the speed it was going and the condition of its brakes, it took about a half mile to actually come to a stop.

  “What do we do?” Apple asked.

  Hero gripped his steering wheel tightly. “We gun it.”

  18

  “You ready for a bait-and-switch, Speedy?” Hero said over the radio.

  “10-4,” was the only response. Speedy peeled out in reverse, narrowly avoiding Alexandria. Hero hit the gas, not bothering to look for oncoming traffic before turning left. In his side mirror, Hero saw the ancient cop car doing a three-point-turn, then coming back at him. Hero was traveling fast, but the cop car was already beginning to gain on him.

  “He’s gonna catch us, isn’t he?” Apple asked. She was sounding a bit hysterical. “We’re going to a re-education camp, aren’t we?”

  “I sure hope not,” Hero said. He picked up the hand mic. “You’re clear on all sides.”

  The cop car passed the intersection they had just came
from, and that’s when all hell broke loose. Speedy’s car flew through the stop sign, going about sixty miles an hour. She clipped the back panel of the cop car. It tumbled end-over-end, flipping four times before coming to a rest on its roof. The Mustang didn’t stop either. It went right off the road and into the woods.

  Hero slammed on his brakes and pulled the truck over to the side of the road. He grabbed the sawed-off shotgun from behind Apple’s seat.

  “What are you doing?” Apple asked.

  “What does it look like I’m doing? They went off the road, and I’m going to make sure they’re okay.”

  “Well, didn’t we talk about that earlier?”

  “Talk about what?” Hero asked.

  “That's their job, isn't it? They took out that cop car. We’re in the clear. If they’re still fine, they’ll be back on the road in no time. Shouldn’t we go on without them?”

  There was a certain logic to what she was saying, but Hero never considered it. “We’re still too far out. We’d never make it without them,” he said. He knew that was mostly a lie, that the only real threat to their mission’s completion was behind them, but that wasn’t the reason.

  I’d never survive without them, Hero thought to himself. It was a realization that he wasn’t sure he liked, but now wasn’t the time to think deeply on it.

  “Wait!” Apple yelled. “Do you need my help?”

  “No, just stay in the truck,” Hero said. He closed the door and began to jog over to the cop car. The truck had taken a while to stop, and he was worried about the girls, so he was already sweating by the time he reached it.

  The robot was still in the passenger’s seat, upside down. “Zerp. Zerp. You are under arrest,” it said, like it was intentionally acting like an idiot. The sheriff was nowhere to be found.

  “God damnit,” Hero said to himself as he kept going toward the intersection. He still couldn’t see the Mustang, even this close to where it had gone off the road. He had seen it go off the road, though, and it had been moving fast. Maybe I should have brought a first aid kit instead of the shotgun, Hero thought. Just the thought of the two of them injured, or worse, sent him into a little bit of a panic. He forced himself to focus on the fact that Zorflox was still out there, possibly moving in on the girls’ location already. He dove off the road and into the woods, hoping to take the alien by surprise rather than vice versa.